San Antonio's Mayor Castro to be Newest Far-Leftist on Obama's Cabinet

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is about to be tapped by President Barrack Obama to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This is the second time Obama will have asked Castro to serve in his administration.

The move for Castro comes at a time where a big game of musical chairs is going on in the Obama Cabinet. Castro will be asked to replace HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, who is expected to move to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB Secretary Sylvia Burwell has been nominated to become the new head of Health and Human Services (HHS) where a vacancy occurred with the resignation of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. This is according to a report in the New York Times today.

This is not Obama’s first courtship with Castro. Last year, Obama tried to bring on Castro to serve as Transportation Secretary. Castro declined the offer but privately, according to Politico, “he’s said an offer from the president to serve as education secretary would have proven tougher to turn down.”

Last month, Breitbart Texas’ education specialist, Merrill Hope took Castro to task on his signature education policy and how this was rejected by the San Antonio School Board. The board voted 6-1 to reject the City of San Antonio’s Pre-K 4 SA program. Hope contacted the Texas Education Agency about financial questions that had been raised about the school district’s program. Breitbart Texas spoke to TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson who advised that SSAISD is under “special accreditation investigation based on primarily concerning the district’s state fiscal management practice, related governance, and student performance issues.”

In her article quoted above, Hope wrote, Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day pre-kindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care to families residing in the city of San Antonio. The program is funded through voter-approved sales tax and state pre-K funding that school districts agree to pass along based on the number of students who sign up. The taxpayer funded program is free to those eligible families; although, ten percent of non-eligible area families attend pay a monthly tuition. Prior to SSAISD dropping out, Pre-K 4 SA served eight school districts in Bexar County.

In 2012, Breitbart News’ Charles Johnson wrote an article titled, Julian Castro: A Radical Revealed. His article quotes a Castro essay from 1994 titled Writing for Change: A Community Reader:

“[My mother] sees political activism as an opportunity to change people’s lives for the better. Perhaps that is because of her outspoken nature or because Chicanos in the early 1970s (and, of course, for many years before) had no other option. To make themselves heard Chicanos needed the opportunity that the political system provided. In any event, my mother’s fervor for activism affected the first years of my life, as it touches it today.

Castro wrote fondly of those early days and basked in the slogans of the day. “‘Viva La Raza!’ ‘Black and Brown United!’ ‘Accept me for who I am–Chicano.’ These and many other powerful slogans rang in my ears like war cries.” These war cries, Castro believes, advanced the interests of their political community. He sees her rabble-rousing as the cause for Latino successes, not the individual successes of those hard-working men and women who persevered despite some wrinkles in the American meritocracy.

The article goes on to make the case of Julian Castro’s penchant for radical liberalism. This is a trait that would make him a star in an Obama Administration and a potential prospect for a vice-presidential seat on a 2016 Democratic Ticket. Johnson wrote, “Mayor Castro calls voter I.D. laws “voter suppression,” repeating the common left-wing canard that Hispanics, who have marginally higher rates of lacking an I.D., won’t be able to cast ballots. The possibility of a smaller Hispanic turnout also has Julian and Joaquin upset because it might delay their paths to statewide office.”

Castro will now face an extensive background check and be the subject of a stringent cross examination in the Senate confirmation process which could begin in a couple months.